Tuesday, May 31, 2011

In a past post on TechCrunch I talked about how to build a mobile team. More recently, I have seen a number of companies building apps "Android First". I.e. while developers used to always build for iPhone first, I have seen more and more companies (such as Heyzap and Taskos) starting off with Android first, and then expanding to iPhone from there. In some cases, companies end up focusing exclusively on Android due to the large, relatively (to iPhone) uncrowded opportunity, for example, Papaya Mobile.

Why Android First?

Ease of distribution = fast iteration. With android, you can do over the air (OTA) downloads. This means you are not locked in to going through an official app store for distribution. This may change as carriers decide to launch their own app stores in certain countries. However, on average the bar to launching and distributing an app on Android is much lower then on iOS. This openness helps to accelerate app development and distribution, and makes developers less beholden to Apple policies.

Large user base. Android's installed base has sky rocketed in the last few quarters and it is now larger then iPhone. While the handset numbers have accelerated, the number of apps and the categories covered are still weak relative to iOS. This creates opportunities for developers.

Lack of competition. Every time my girlfriend pulls out her Android phone, I ask her about apps I love for the iPhone and she has none of them. Developers have been focused on iPhone, and Android has lagged for a number of categories (e.g. games). This means there is a lot of white space to build new apps for the android platform in areas that feel more crowded or saturated on iPhone. Coupled to a large and fast growing userbase, this makes Android an attractive platform to develop for.

Worse Design = easier to stand out. Android is a less mature platform than iPhone, and has looser enforcement of UI principles. This means a well designed app stands out more on Android relative to iPhone, making differentiation on Android easier as an app developer. Taskos is an example of an application with really nice design on Android.

Less enforcement. Apple is much more aggressive about policing apps that may compete with its native applications. On Android, given the ease of downloading any app, developers can build e.g. an iTunes competitor and still distribute it without being blocked by Google.

There are obvious downsides to developing for Android (e.g. less mature advertising ecosystem, increasing fragmentation of the OS, fewer early hipster adopters, etc.). That said, I think there will be more and more "Android First" companies, and this is a really exciting and interesting trend in the mobile world.

What are the key differences / advantages / disadvantages of Android First development? Let me know in the comments.

Monday, May 2, 2011

1. Run out of money
The number one reason a company fails is it runs out of money. Many of the "acqua-hires" by Facebook and Google are teams who ran out of cash looking for a home. They did not sell their company as a talent buy. They literally just get hired in with standard employment packages. One common variant of this are the various seed companies that raise a $1 million seed round and hire up a 6-7 person team prior to getting to product market fit. The company burns through the cash in a year, and then tries to shop itself to Google, FB, etc. If the sale falls through, the company shuts down and the employees get hired individually by various companies. This scenario is most common on teams with a large number of business founders - e.g. if you have 3 business founders and 3 engineers, the engineers may leave early on with trouble and the residual value of the team is low or none which means the company does not get an exit at all and the founders disperse to look for jobs.Ways to mitigate:

Run lean. Only hire up the team when you are confident you will be able to make money or raise more money.

Raise more cash then you need when you can.

Bootstrap the company or charge for the product from day one.

Focus on having an engineering heavy team from day 1 to increase the odds of a talent buy if all else fails.

2. Team implosion
Lack of clear decision making? Founders constantly fighting? Hiring a bunch of jerks that irritate everyone? A lot of companies end up imploding due to bad team dynamics leading to a lack of clear direction, internal infighting and backstabbing, and a terrible working environment.Ways to mitigate:

Make sure you and your co-founders have clearly defined roles and there is a single person ultimately in charge who can call the shots.

Make sure you and your co-founders can communicate openly, have mature and frank discussions (can you give each other constructive feedback?), and are aligned on where you want to take the company (does one person want to sell early and the other wants to build a long term global business?).

3. Living dead company / lifestyle business.
Depending on your perspective this is either a great outcome (a small, lifestyle, tech business) or a terrible outcome ("living dead" startup with little or no equity value). VCs and hyperambitious founders think of companies that reach a certain scale, but never become a breakout success as the worst form of failure. Rather then fail fast and be able to move on to something else, the entrepreneur is locked into a company on a slow to nonexistent trajectory. The company spins off enough cash to stay alive and pay salaries, but not enough to grow at a meaningful rate. Additional funding is not available as the company is viewed as a small cash business. The entrepreneur feels like she can never leave ("I owe it to the employees and investors to stick around") and the VCs are stuck with a board seat that takes up a big chunk of their time.Ways to mitigate: